alarming reports, irresponsible theories, 9/11

* tpmcafe:

"We've just obtained a letter that Madeleine Albright and Samuel Berger have just sent to 9/11 Commission chair Tom Kean, demanding that Kean use his pull with ABC to get the network to kill "The Path to 9/11.":

...Amidst alarming reports that irresponsible theories about the events of 9/11 have begun to gain currency with the American people, you should not want to lend your personal reputation to a production which seems likely to instigatenew and dangerous falsehoods. And so we ask that you use your influence to persuade ABC to withdraw the broadcast altogether. Failing that, we urge you to sever your relationship with this grossly misleading production.

* taylor marsh got an angry phone call from John Kerry about Pathto911. and he also issued a statement:

"What I find most stunning in all of this is that now five years after the real 9/11 – as if any fiction could somehow make more searing what each and every one of us lived with our own eyes and ears – is that we need less revisionism about the past and a hell of a lot more reality about what’s going on now. Right now.

Instead of the fiction written to excuse the invasion of Iraq by exploiting the 3,000 mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who were lost that day — they were attacked and killed not by Saddam Hussein but by Osama bin Laden – we need the truth.

Here’s a little truth: The President pretends Iraq is the central front on the war on terror. It is not now, and never has been. His disastrous decisions have made Iraq a fuel depot for terror – fanning the flames of conflict around the world.

The terrorists are not on the run. Worldwide, terrorist acts are at an all-time high, more than tripling between 2004 and 2005. Al Qaeda has spawned a vast and decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11. The Taliban now controls entire portions of southern Afghanistan, and just across the border Pakistan is just one coup away from becoming a radical jihadist state with nuclear weapons. The Middle East is more unstable than it has been in decades. Hezbollah flags fly from rooftops in Shiia slums of Sadr City and Iran is rebuilding Southern Lebanon. We have an Iraqi Prime Minister sustained in power by our forces, who will not speak against the Hezbollah terrorists, who will not say that Israel has a right to exist, and who will not condemn the Iranian nuclear program, who will not even as a national leader support the national army over the Shiite militia. In other words, the Iraq government that the administration cites as the front-line force in the fight against terrorism won’t even take our side when we are fighting terrorists. No American soldier should be asked to stand up for an Iraqi government that won’t stand up for the values and interests that draw them into battle every day. Oh, and the 9/11 commission recently gave our government a failing grade on implementing intelligence reforms.

I love watching movies, but with the world looking the way it is right now I think this is a good time to stick with just the facts. After Iraq, we’ve all had enough fiction to last a lifetime.

Senator John Kerry"

* Kristen Breitweiser was on Larry King - she did a terrific job. Catch it if you can.

* Drum:

"Let me get this straight. Weldon is one of the "foremost Republican military experts in the House," but he didn't realize that stripping the president of the authority to determine troop dispositions would be a plainly unconsitutional infringement of his commander-in-chief powers? Apparently the Republican Party really is a living, breathing example of the fictional world of Idiocracy. How else could a guy like Weldon rise to the top of the heap?"